Let's Sperg Let's Play Laser Squad (1992 PC Release) (Completed) - Holiday Special
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- Feb 24, 2019
7 Good luck on the last mission. Don't let your dreams not be memes. I was going to ask for the Autocannon, but with all the people asking for Lightsabers and shit I decided I should take a practical weapon rather than wasting cash on a BFG. Turns out it was the tool for the mission. Atleast I didn't completely wiff in the mission.
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2018
Heavy laser
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2019
10. Mission 5: Paradise Valley
End of January he said. Its gonna be damn close. I was able to afford every weapon that was asked for, but the armor selection is awful. Also for some reason the MK1 rifle is ridiculously expensive, even more expensive than the MarSec Autogun or the Heavy Laser.
Here's what our deployment looks like. You may notice there are infact eight soldiers when I only asked for the loadouts of seven. Who's the extra soldier?
Why, its Dear Leader! For some reason the game can't just start the Security Device in the inventory of a random trooper, so you get one with armor and inventory already pre-selected. He's always carrying a Mk1 Autogun, a Light Sabre and equipped with Armor 2. This mission is over only when he (or someone else holding the Security Device) gets to the far right side of the map.
I start moving everyone up. I keep the squads together a fair amount. You'll notice the map is fucking huge and most of the ways ahead are clogged with dense foliage. I have no idea how to get into that maze of caverns at the bottom and I have zero interest in doing so as it looks like a death trap.
This is what we're up against. There are two Sectoid, which in this depiction look like Orcs rather than little grey aliens (I don't think Julian Gollop was in communication with the people who did the remastered artwork). And there are also two of whatever the fuck that second thing is.
You people have no idea how absolutely disappointed I will be if we don't encounter a Venemous (sic) Splurge in XPiratez.
First thing we have to do is clear that foliage blocking those tunnels. I could do it tediously by using the conventional weapons on it but White Devil's Autocannon makes much quicker work of the brush.
Once the way ahead is open everyone heads for the caves. Those Autocannons will be completely useless in close quarters unless I want to risk everyone getting killed, so I have myself, Disc and Moths covering, with Dear Leader in the middle and Llama King shoring up the rear. NerdShamer's Heavy Laser is predictably extremely heavy; I should have just ditched his extra ammo pack so he could keep up better. But I never do, so he lags behind a little.
In we go.
I have no idea where these things are lurking, so check those corners people.
Check those corners.
Check those corners.
One of those Venemous Splurge things pops out of a cave to the north.
Christ its huge.
Not quite a direct hit...
Shit. Lets hope this thing is melee only. Or that its out of AP.
White Devil opens fire again on my actual turn. Its tough but its not invincible, the Splurge goes down.
I start to spread my troops out again now that we're free of those caves. That other Splurge could be anywhere, so I try to have White Devil and Wtfneedsignup keep a lookout. But an astute observer will notice there's only seven troopers in those screenshots. Nobody's died yet, right?
Fuck! I left NerdShamer behind. There's no time to wait around for him with those thing prowling around, he's just gonna have to hope nothing finds him on the way to the rest of the group.
While that's going on I get my troops ready to start cutting through the foliage to get to the river. I'm not even sure how we're supposed to get across; I'm just presuming my troops can wade over with only an AP penalty. Llama King spots something when the foliage is blown out.
The other Venemous Splurge! He takes two shots at it, which I seem to have not screenshotted because the rock I was holding down my Ctrl key with fell off my desk.
Shit! The Venemous Splurge indeed has a ranged attack, which flies right through the tiny hole we made in the foliage and punches clean through @Llama king's armor.
I have White Devil line up for an Autocannon shot.
Direct hit!
The Splurge is toast. I get everyone lined up to cross the river, with White Devil and Wtfneedsignup keeping an eye out since it seems only their weapons will do anything if more of these things show up.
The river crossing goes fine, surprisingly. There are still enemy turns happening but apparently nowhere near where we can see them.
Disc crosses the river, then White Devil starts crossing with Wtfneedsignup covering him. On the other side I have Dear Leader and Moths start clearing away foliage, which reveals the Mk1 to have godawful accuracy. They miss about 50% of their shots shooting at shrubs.
I notice there are these locked chests in some parts of the level. I'm not sure what's in them, but its too late to send anyone back to find out. Meanwhile, NerdShamer successfully rejoins the group. Wtfneedsignup covers him as he prepares to cross the river as well.
Typical for my luck in these kinds of games, Dear Leader runs out of AP literally one step before what I presume is the the victory zone. The game has spawned a third Venemous Splurge to harry us, but so far it hasn't shown up. I'm expecting it to pop up on this side of the river just to fuck me at the last minute.
Turns out no, that's it. We've done it, we've escaped Paradise Valley, and it only took one casualty to do it too.
Casualties (Total Kills):
Llama King (0)
White Devil (0)
Moths (0)
NerdShamer (0)
Genichiro (0)
Goyaanisqatsi (2)
L50LasPak (1)
A-Z-09 (0)
Polyboros2 (2)
Arm_of_the_Lord (1)
Llama King II (0)
Survivors (Total Kills):
Bookmark Cuck (2)
Neo-Holstien (0)
JongleJingle (3)
Mooger Meng (1)
SilenceIsViolence (2)
JohnDoe (4)
ChucklesTheJester (1)
Disc (2)
Wtfneedsignup (17)
Dear Leader (0)
L50LasPak II (0)
White Devil II (2)
Moths II (0)
NerdShamer II (0)
Observations:
End of January he said. Its gonna be damn close. I was able to afford every weapon that was asked for, but the armor selection is awful. Also for some reason the MK1 rifle is ridiculously expensive, even more expensive than the MarSec Autogun or the Heavy Laser.
Here's what our deployment looks like. You may notice there are infact eight soldiers when I only asked for the loadouts of seven. Who's the extra soldier?
Why, its Dear Leader! For some reason the game can't just start the Security Device in the inventory of a random trooper, so you get one with armor and inventory already pre-selected. He's always carrying a Mk1 Autogun, a Light Sabre and equipped with Armor 2. This mission is over only when he (or someone else holding the Security Device) gets to the far right side of the map.
I start moving everyone up. I keep the squads together a fair amount. You'll notice the map is fucking huge and most of the ways ahead are clogged with dense foliage. I have no idea how to get into that maze of caverns at the bottom and I have zero interest in doing so as it looks like a death trap.
This is what we're up against. There are two Sectoid, which in this depiction look like Orcs rather than little grey aliens (I don't think Julian Gollop was in communication with the people who did the remastered artwork). And there are also two of whatever the fuck that second thing is.
First thing we have to do is clear that foliage blocking those tunnels. I could do it tediously by using the conventional weapons on it but White Devil's Autocannon makes much quicker work of the brush.
Once the way ahead is open everyone heads for the caves. Those Autocannons will be completely useless in close quarters unless I want to risk everyone getting killed, so I have myself, Disc and Moths covering, with Dear Leader in the middle and Llama King shoring up the rear. NerdShamer's Heavy Laser is predictably extremely heavy; I should have just ditched his extra ammo pack so he could keep up better. But I never do, so he lags behind a little.
In we go.
I have no idea where these things are lurking, so check those corners people.
Check those corners.
Check those corners.
One of those Venemous Splurge things pops out of a cave to the north.
Christ its huge.
Not quite a direct hit...
Shit. Lets hope this thing is melee only. Or that its out of AP.
White Devil opens fire again on my actual turn. Its tough but its not invincible, the Splurge goes down.
I start to spread my troops out again now that we're free of those caves. That other Splurge could be anywhere, so I try to have White Devil and Wtfneedsignup keep a lookout. But an astute observer will notice there's only seven troopers in those screenshots. Nobody's died yet, right?
Fuck! I left NerdShamer behind. There's no time to wait around for him with those thing prowling around, he's just gonna have to hope nothing finds him on the way to the rest of the group.
While that's going on I get my troops ready to start cutting through the foliage to get to the river. I'm not even sure how we're supposed to get across; I'm just presuming my troops can wade over with only an AP penalty. Llama King spots something when the foliage is blown out.
The other Venemous Splurge! He takes two shots at it, which I seem to have not screenshotted because the rock I was holding down my Ctrl key with fell off my desk.
Shit! The Venemous Splurge indeed has a ranged attack, which flies right through the tiny hole we made in the foliage and punches clean through @Llama king's armor.
I have White Devil line up for an Autocannon shot.
Direct hit!
The Splurge is toast. I get everyone lined up to cross the river, with White Devil and Wtfneedsignup keeping an eye out since it seems only their weapons will do anything if more of these things show up.
The river crossing goes fine, surprisingly. There are still enemy turns happening but apparently nowhere near where we can see them.
Disc crosses the river, then White Devil starts crossing with Wtfneedsignup covering him. On the other side I have Dear Leader and Moths start clearing away foliage, which reveals the Mk1 to have godawful accuracy. They miss about 50% of their shots shooting at shrubs.
I notice there are these locked chests in some parts of the level. I'm not sure what's in them, but its too late to send anyone back to find out. Meanwhile, NerdShamer successfully rejoins the group. Wtfneedsignup covers him as he prepares to cross the river as well.
Typical for my luck in these kinds of games, Dear Leader runs out of AP literally one step before what I presume is the the victory zone. The game has spawned a third Venemous Splurge to harry us, but so far it hasn't shown up. I'm expecting it to pop up on this side of the river just to fuck me at the last minute.
Turns out no, that's it. We've done it, we've escaped Paradise Valley, and it only took one casualty to do it too.
Casualties (Total Kills):
Llama King (0)
White Devil (0)
Moths (0)
NerdShamer (0)
Genichiro (0)
Goyaanisqatsi (2)
L50LasPak (1)
A-Z-09 (0)
Polyboros2 (2)
Arm_of_the_Lord (1)
Llama King II (0)
Survivors (Total Kills):
Bookmark Cuck (2)
Neo-Holstien (0)
JongleJingle (3)
Mooger Meng (1)
SilenceIsViolence (2)
JohnDoe (4)
ChucklesTheJester (1)
Disc (2)
Wtfneedsignup (17)
Dear Leader (0)
L50LasPak II (0)
White Devil II (2)
Moths II (0)
NerdShamer II (0)
Observations:
- The MK1 Autogun is terrible! At 22 Credits its the most expensive basic gun in the game, even more expensive than the fucking Autocannon, and it can't hit shit even when its standing still!
- I think there's some kind of mechanic where the Light Sabre can be automatically used to clear brush. I accidentally walked Disc or Dear Leader into a shrub at one point and it vanished. I must be completely misunderstanding how melee attacks work in this game.
- I suspect you were supposed to use grenades or Autocannon blasts to blow a hole into those caves at the bottom of the map, to present an alternate path to going over the river that the Venemous Splurges inhabited. I didn't see a single Sectoid on the surface, so they must be an alternate opponent more suited to the caves for you to fight.
- What were the Splurges using for a ranged attack? I guess they were supposed to be able to spit venom, but I'd bet actual money the game equips them with Lasguns internally. I choose to therefore believe they have laser eyes. You listening to this, XPiratez devs?
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- Joined
- Jun 25, 2020
Thanks for a great LP and taking the effort and expense to actually provide us with the full music.
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2019
11. Postmortem
Well. That was a God damned mess. I'd say it wasn't worth it but I've had this game on my computer for years and years at this point. I'd check the Date Modified on my files but it still has the game's release date on them so, dunno. I might have actually downloaded this game as far back as 2011. So I've had this one on my mind for a really long time and just never gotten around to it.
Overall, meh. I guess at least I know now what the game's like, and that its not totally unplayable or unbeatable oldschool shit. I'm not super satisfied with how I conducted the LP though, there were multiple days where I would close the Select Arms then I'd get distracted with something and I'd end up going the whole weekend without posting anyway. Probably could have planned that one out better. And I just barely hit my target time for completing this thread.
My Needlessly Complicated Renaming Process
I do want to walk the thread through the editing process real quick though, because this was a huge pain in the ass and I want it out in the open incase some other dope is dumb enough to try this themselves. The original screenshots are captured by DOSBox and stored in a PNG format, which among other things is fully compatible with MSPaint. The old version that came with Windows XP. Because I never learned how to use the new version. Sue me.
Anyway, I extracted a full alphabet from screenshots and assembled it like so. Ahead of every mission I would assemble all of the names ahead of time in a separate image like this:
From there, I would go through all of the screenshots I took, which would number anywhere between 400 on the smaller missions to 800 on the longer ones (I have a habit of just mashing the screenshot button when anything at all happens), and I would manually pick out the ones showing something interesting that would be happened. The rest of the screenshots ("chaff") I'd dump into their own folder incase I still needed them. Then using the thumbnails I'd have to go through and separate any screenshot showing a character portrait, erase the name in Paint, and replace it with the newly assembled name. Which worked fairly well because of how primitive the screenshots would be.
Only problem is these Opportunity Fire screens used red/orange letters, which I could sometimes acquire elsewhere, but often I had to make myself by selecting colors from existing letters and recoloring the tan ones. I could have gone through the game on two player mode and triggered opportunity fire using all the names that I did to collect the first set of letters, but that was enough of a pain in the ass the first time through so I didn't really feel up to doing it again. Finally after all that shit was done I would move the renamed images back into the main folder with the others from the same session.
The Music
I have all of the tracks recorded, including the Roland version which I did eventually find a way to record. I'll be attaching those to the OP shortly. Music attached to the op, with some Youtube links of remixes to go along with it. Note to everyone that the Roland version seems to have substituted sound effects for some of the MIDI instruments, so unfortunately a couple of songs are rather screwed up and don't sound like the two available on Youtube. I have no idea what the problem is, my DOSBox instance is unmodified, and I'm frankly sick of screwing around with it so I've done all I can. I think the ADLIB tracks are all in great condition though.
Was there anything you missed?
Plenty, actually. I never figured out how melee worked, I don't think this panic screen came up in any of the runs I used during the LP, and I never tried to explore alternate routes in the game. I also never actually took down that Battle Droid, or busted open one of the chests in Paradise Valley, etc. If that's the kind of thing that will keep you up at night, I encourage you to play the game yourself and get to know the classics a little.
Will you play Laser Squad Nemesis?
Ehhhh, probably not. My random obsession with Laser Squad really begins and ends at the first game. I think someone recommended Nemesis in the now neglected XCOM thread but other than that I like never see people talk about this game. Its apparently free on many abandonware sites so, perhaps in the distant future when I run out of XPiratez content I may be persuaded to give it a try.
What about Rebelstar? Isn't that technically a Laser Squad game?
Christ mate fuckin look at it.
When will you get back to XPiratez?
During the week, most likely. As per usual I'm going to proofread the thread first and compose a proper table of contents which I plan on doing tomorrow.
Thanks for sticking with this one guys, I know it was weird and niche and took forever to update!
Well. That was a God damned mess. I'd say it wasn't worth it but I've had this game on my computer for years and years at this point. I'd check the Date Modified on my files but it still has the game's release date on them so, dunno. I might have actually downloaded this game as far back as 2011. So I've had this one on my mind for a really long time and just never gotten around to it.
Overall, meh. I guess at least I know now what the game's like, and that its not totally unplayable or unbeatable oldschool shit. I'm not super satisfied with how I conducted the LP though, there were multiple days where I would close the Select Arms then I'd get distracted with something and I'd end up going the whole weekend without posting anyway. Probably could have planned that one out better. And I just barely hit my target time for completing this thread.
My Needlessly Complicated Renaming Process
I do want to walk the thread through the editing process real quick though, because this was a huge pain in the ass and I want it out in the open incase some other dope is dumb enough to try this themselves. The original screenshots are captured by DOSBox and stored in a PNG format, which among other things is fully compatible with MSPaint. The old version that came with Windows XP. Because I never learned how to use the new version. Sue me.
Anyway, I extracted a full alphabet from screenshots and assembled it like so. Ahead of every mission I would assemble all of the names ahead of time in a separate image like this:
Only problem is these Opportunity Fire screens used red/orange letters, which I could sometimes acquire elsewhere, but often I had to make myself by selecting colors from existing letters and recoloring the tan ones. I could have gone through the game on two player mode and triggered opportunity fire using all the names that I did to collect the first set of letters, but that was enough of a pain in the ass the first time through so I didn't really feel up to doing it again. Finally after all that shit was done I would move the renamed images back into the main folder with the others from the same session.
The Music
Was there anything you missed?
Plenty, actually. I never figured out how melee worked, I don't think this panic screen came up in any of the runs I used during the LP, and I never tried to explore alternate routes in the game. I also never actually took down that Battle Droid, or busted open one of the chests in Paradise Valley, etc. If that's the kind of thing that will keep you up at night, I encourage you to play the game yourself and get to know the classics a little.
Will you play Laser Squad Nemesis?
Ehhhh, probably not. My random obsession with Laser Squad really begins and ends at the first game. I think someone recommended Nemesis in the now neglected XCOM thread but other than that I like never see people talk about this game. Its apparently free on many abandonware sites so, perhaps in the distant future when I run out of XPiratez content I may be persuaded to give it a try.
What about Rebelstar? Isn't that technically a Laser Squad game?
Christ mate fuckin look at it.
When will you get back to XPiratez?
During the week, most likely. As per usual I'm going to proofread the thread first and compose a proper table of contents which I plan on doing tomorrow.
Thanks for sticking with this one guys, I know it was weird and niche and took forever to update!
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- Joined
- Jun 2, 2020
It's fine, everyone knows that February doesn't officially start until St. Chocolate's Day.
That sounds less like a critter and more like an STD. So, perfect for XPIratez!
I'd say at least a few of us are willing to cut you a little slack now that you're a Thunderdome janny. For what it's worth, though, that's why I've put myself on a schedule for the Tactics Ogre thread, because I know I'm a lazy fucker otherwise.
Hey, you had three completed LPs under your belt for games that are orders of magnitude more complicated. We had faith in you.
... okay, I did, I dunno about the rest of these jerks.
This man speaks the truth. Thank you for your efforts @L50LasPak, and hopefully we'll get back to our (ir)regularly scheduled pirate mayhem soon!
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2018
Well that was anticlimactic.
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2020
It really does feel like the last few missions, and the last one in particular, were banged out as quick as possible, either because they were running out of time or motivation. Lord knows I was comparing the last mission to the Thin Men Paratrooper Patrols from the escort missions in 2012 XCOM in my head, and spent the whole time wondering when a bunch of dudes were going to appear out of nowhere behind the squad and proceed to make brand new assholes where none had previously existed.
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2019
That's how it ends? That's it? I wasn't expecting much, and I still ended up disappointed.
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2018
Fuck that shit, My ass was not going to survive some super battle, WTF and Disc can be action heroes on their own time, I want to live
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2019
I was thinking about this while editing the LP and I came to the conclusion that the graphics and long intros on two of the missions gives the false impression that the game is a lot bigger and more grandiose than it actually is. The original game was programmed in 1988 in a computer that had less than a MB of RAM in some cases and the gameplay wasn't really changed at all for this release, so its no wonder its so shallow.
Also i want to let everyone know I've finished up editing, and added the music files to the OP. as well as some other links, check those out too even if you don't want to download anything. XPiratez might be another week depending on how quick I get movienight's shit together this weekend.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2019
Wasn't there an expansion pack with two more missions? Or maybe I'm thinking of Lords of Chaos which was a contemporary game which had some similarities. That might be worth checking out. Like Laser Squad it was a kind-of reinvention of an earlier game - in this case "Chaos". Like Laser Squad it was a turns-based, action based game. But based around magic. Had ingredients to collect and make potions, creature summonings and such. Also, like Laser Squad fun little fiction pieces to provide an introduction to each "mission". Might be worth a look if you like Laser Squad (or if you like the idea of Laser Squad but found this version a bit lacking).
